Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Last Post for macro before Chapter 10 Test - # 17

#17
Step 1 - Find and post three graphs or charts that explain the theory of business cycles.

Step 2 - Explain the strengths and weaknesses of each

Step 3 - Name and give an award to the "best" business cycle.   Explain why you chose the one you selected in 4-6 sentences.

Be creative/have fun with the Name and maybe even design the award !

Friday, December 17, 2010

MACRO ECONOMICS

I suggest you read Chapter 10 in the book!

POST 10 - React to reading: What do you think macroeconomics will be all about?  What interests you about this topic? List three things you hope to learn!

POST 11 - Using the 4x3technique. 3 rules and 4 ingredients create a recipe or math formula that explains how GDP is calculated!

POST 12 - write a letter to the editor why the GDP is a faulty indicator – suggest other indicators (GNP, NNP etc)

POST 13 - Practice quizzes!   Explain the 10 things you learned or things that got "cleared up for you"

POST 14 - Reaction to a youtube video – “My Humps” and the Business Cycle Rap Then watch this Qwiki Find a link to a better video or website for Business cycles.  Was the video helpful or silly?  Which source was more useful why?

POST 15 - find and react to a list of leading/coincident/lagging indicators.  Pick the top 3 in each category.

POST 16 - Create any visual that you think may be helpful on the Chapter 10 test!  Be Creative

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

100 word essay contest for students POST 9 - Oh yeah - you could win cold hard ca$h

Here is the deal.


Make this Post 9 (Post 8= Big Points Grade re: Malcolm Gladwell) but include how technology has improved our class and maybe even your learning.




The Tween Tribune is currently holding a 100 word essay contest for students in grades 3 through 12. Tween Tribune will award $500 prizes to the winners in each grade and five $100 prizes to runners-up in each grade. Student essays should address the prompt, "how technology makes the world a better place." Entries are due by January 16, 2011. You can read all of the contest details here.




Applications for Education
Writing concisely can be a challenge for some students. Writing for this contest provides students with a good opportunity to practice the art of writing concisely. The $500 prize is a nice incentive too.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

T H A N K Y O U

An Open Letter to My Economics Guinea Pigs

OK, I have been brimming with pride as I have watched you try.  Sometimes that is all an educator needs is to see you try. 

As you have been trying I have felt like a hypocrite since I have not posted a blog.  This blog serves two masters.  First I hope to send a sincere message to you and a serious message of encouragement to other educators. 

For those of you not in my class, please allow me to provide a bit of background.  First and foremost, I love teaching economics.  In my dream world, I would teach 5 periods of economics; maybe a few micro courses and an AP section.  Heck, I would love to teach a high school class based around Freakonomics. 

Economics serves as a great guinea pig class for me.  It is a one semester elective for seniors and this class is my only section; these two factors allow me to attempt new lessons with them.  If a lesson fails (and it has) – we only have to suffer through it once. 

During one of those bomb lessons a bright and sarcastically gifted young man called me out for a few bad or boring lessons. I believe he said, “All we do is PowerPoint.”  That stung and cut deeply.  The comment forced me to look in the mirror.

This was the kick in the butt I needed to experiment once again.  

 I say once again because these kids have been my guinea pigs for using zooburst.  The highlights of this lesson are now running on our local cable station!  These kids were also my test case for Prezi!  Some kids adopted Prezi and use it in other classes – others found it intimidating and convoluted.

The Prezi and Zooburt experiment were a direct reaction to my experience at the Tri State Education tech conference hosted by Eric Sheninger at New Milford.  More specifically, I became a pathetic fanboy for Adam Bellows of edutecher.com.

This brings me to my most recent efforts.  A few posters on twitter inspired me as well as Marc Seigel.  My nerves were settled when I saw the success my colleague Andrea Mystrena was having with her classes blogs.   I decided to attempt a modified inverted classroom.  I created a blog to serve as headquarters for our class.

After negotiating a few sticky wickets, we were off and running.  I am not sure my administration was ready to have a teacher sign up for a computer lab for every 3rd period from Thanksgiving to January 21st!  To my great surprise, I met with a few questions but more support.  Their encouragement and support emboldened me to go all in.  We will meet as a traditional class for the first time in 10 days and I am truly looking forward to the conversations.

Again to my students – thank you for the respect and relationship that we enjoy!  I am looking forward to hearing from you.

To my teacher friends – Do not be afraid to get out of their way and let them learn.  Do not be afraid to turn the room over to the people who properly own the room – the kids. 

The students were asked to do numerous posts that forced (I hope) them to reflect on the material of the unit.  Thus far, all of this was fairly mundane stuff and straight forward.  Kids read assignment; kid answer assignment.  I did enjoy the freedom to meet with and help each kid as they worked on his or her own pace.

Blessing #1- they all tried.  Some of you are a little behind where I would like you but I see some real effort.

Blessing #2 – I learned three or four neat tech tricks from “hidden” experts in my room.

Blessing #3 - #Comments4kids came across my twitter feed.  Now we are getting comments from the outside world and we are commenting on other blogs from AROUND THE WORLD!

So I thank my guinea pigs for a wonderful experience.  Teaching your class I s my personal renaissance.  In fact, going to my other more traditional classes can be very difficult.

Keep trying.  Keep learning.  Keep experience.  If you do not want to do it for yourself – please do it for the next 100,000 kids I will get to teach.

With Great Thanks –

Mr. Campbell

Monday, December 06, 2010

Comments4Kids

Here is the link for Comments4kids.  If you want extra credit become a follower of one of the blogs listed.  Please be sure to read and follow the rules of comments4kids:


Rules for Comments4Kids
1) Relevant
2) Positive
3) Comment only when you have something to say.

4) Always use good conventions (capitalization, punctuation, etc.)


I am honestly excited about you and the outside world connecting.
Make me proud -
BC

My hero ~~Malcolm Gladwell~~ POST 8

After reading several book by Malcolm Gladwell, I have really come to admire and respect him.  We used the book Outliers for the Gifted and Talented class.  He has a skill for identifying trends and patterns that are lying in plain sight.


He gave a  speech at a TED conference about the Spaghetti industry.  This speech was delivered in 2006.  Please watch the video (17+ minutes) and write a response to his thoughts.  Please make sure the post can stand alone and be read with out watching the video.  Hopefully, your post will drive the reader to watch the video.  Things to think about:

  • How do other companies compete in this same way?
  • If the prices are close - how do you select between 2 products?
  • MOST IMPORTANT - Please tie it back to the Chapter 6 work on Market Structure.  Which market structure requires that companies compete over something other than price?